topic Re: need to retain white space in shell script in Operating System - HP-UX

need to retain white space in shell script

nishant_4 — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:04:49 GMT

Hi,

I don't want to loose "white space" which is suffix of any string but when i am doing echo, i loose those white spaces. Can anyone help me in this regard? Example

#!/bin/perl
string="123 "
echo "$string"

Output :

123 ## white spaces get removed

required output

123 ##which contains spaces as well.

Thank you

Re: need to retain white space in shell script

Cody Marcel — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:15:48 GMT

This is a perl script, not a shell script. Can yo ube more specific about your problem? IN this example there is one space in the string "123 ". You get this output correctly. I dont understand what you mean by the # since that is not in the string.

You may also try using print instead of echo, but both should yield the same result and that is the exact string you input, including spaces.

Re: need to retain white space in shell script

nishant_4 — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:44:03 GMT

sorry for writing perl.....i don't know space after "123" get deleted although i mentioned it.

#!/bin/ksh
string="123 "
echo "$string"

Output is :

123
in above output white-spaces get trimmed automatically.

But Required O/P should be :

123(with white space)

Re: need to retain white space in shell script

nishant_4 — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:48:50 GMT

white-space also trimmed in this forum......please consider "dot"(.) as white space and then realize my problem.

Suppose "Dot"as white-space

#!/bin/ksh
string="123....................."
echo "$string"

Output is :

123
in above output white-spaces get trimmed automatically.

But Required O/P should be :

123.......................

Re: need to retain white space in shell script

Reju George — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:56:00 GMT

First you wrote a perl script, then you wrote a korn shell script :-)... but I am still confused as to why this question is posted here.... !! This question would need to go to the HP-UX forum.... In VB you have the Space() function to add spaces to a string....

Re: need to retain white space in shell script

nishant_4 — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:11:17 GMT

leave shell or perl script behind.......come to unix command.

consider "Dot" as white-space

$echo "123......................."
123
$
(above is the o/p of command)

But i want output with "white-spaces" how can i achieve it?

Re: need to retain white space in shell script

Cody Marcel — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:46:58 GMT

The whitespace is there, you just cannot see it. If anything it is the terminal that is not displaying the text. Do this...

$ echo '123 1 ' > t.txt

Then open t.txt in an editor like vi. You will see that the trailing spaces are in fact there.

Re: need to retain white space in shell script

Percy Bell — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:22:20 GMT

Use print instead

#!/bin/ksh
string="123 "
string2=" 456"
print "$string$string2"

Re: need to retain white space in shell script

Percy Bell — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:24:22 GMT

Looking at the examples that work the key is to quote the echo/print line.

If you use echo "$c" your script should work.

Re: need to retain white space in shell script

Kapil Jha — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:43:55 GMT

From man

`echo' writes each given STRING to standard output, with a space
between each and a newline after the last one.

So does not matter how many white space you give in echo it would be reduced to one white space between characters , and for only one contunoius string...all white space after character would vanish"
This is what echo do.

If you want to have echo do as said above.
echo "$string"
put $string in quotes.

BR,
Kapil+

Re: need to retain white space in shell script

Suraj K Sankari — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:45:08 GMT

Hi,
[root@rspc521 suraj]# cat o
#!/bin/ksh
string="123 "
echo "$string"
[root@rspc521 suraj]# sh o >oo
[root@rspc521 suraj]# cat oo
123
[root@rspc521 suraj]#

in the above output you can see the output of oo is 123 but if you open file oo and give the command :se list then you can see the space after 123.

Suraj